NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING

Does anyone notice how Ortiz is like the only HoF to get appreciably BETTER in his late 30s? I think they do, but with a lot about Ortiz people like to look the other way like they are Sally Jenkins talking about Lance Armstrong. Once you do that well Ortiz is a Hall of Famer, there's no doubt there. In my "Psychology of the Hall of Fame" post Ortiz hits several points. He's not undeniably great or even undeniably great for his position given his time split, or undeniably great at one thing. He DID hit the magic number of 500 homers (541). He was certainly great at the right time as he was basically the face of the curse-breaking Red Sox. If you can twist yourself like a pretzel saying voting for Ortiz is ok and not Clemens or Bonds or A-Rod or Schilling then yes he's easily the best thing left on the ballot. He's remembered for something "great" (the post Marathon speech). It's not close. Again, if you can deny what's in front of you. 

Which apparently a lot of people can. I thought the desire to vote for Ortiz would be so strong it would help pull Bonds and Clemens over the finish line. Clearly you would either land on "no cheater" or "ok cheaters" but apparently that wasn't the case.  You learn something new everyday and this week I learned not to underestimate the power of hypocrisy.*

ANY WAY 

the negotiations are ... ongoing? The players have made concessions. We're waiting to hear from the owners. There's no sense of when the next counter (by the owners) will come but I'd expect early next week.

*It sounds like I'm mad Ortiz is in but I'm really not. (1) I've said many times HoF who cares and I stand by that. I'm not going to walk in an shake my fist at his plaque or anything and (2) I would have put him in (along with all the other cheats).  I'm mad that people made a big show to try to prove they were not hypocrites when they clearly are. It's like dealing with a little kid. I'm probably going to care more about if you lie to me than if you did something I don't like.

Counter Offer Made

The players have really started the process, sitting down with MLB and making a counter offer. Some things we know :

• They cut out the age based FA thing.  That never had legs for like a million reasons and while it seems like a concession I (and maybe the owners) take it more as something tossed in there to be pulled out purposely to make it look like they were doing something. 
• They reduced revenue sharing to 30 million less to the cheap teams rather than 100 million.  That IS a concession and might slip through?  I think it will be some number... we'll talk about it more in a minute. 
• They nixed two of the owners dumb ideas they threw out there (rewarding teams who start draft pick early with draft picks* and a formula based salary system**)
• An interesting thing I didn't mention yesterday is the "draft lottery" which in the non-playoff teams all have a shot at the first X picks (think NBA). The owners said Top 3 picks, the players said Top 8. I can't imagine it matters at all and it's the dumbest thing being argued about. Teams aren't tanking to get better nor does a single baseball draft pick have that much impact on a team. These ideas will change nothing. 
  
• They still want a raise in minimum salary (will happen), a bump in the luxury tax (will happen). 

Ok well what's the lay of the land?  

The minimum salary and luxury tax are your standard back and forth number arguments that will get worked out one way or another at a compromise number. Depending on how other things work they could favor the owners or the players more but these aren't the sticking points. These are the things they can use to get past the sticking points. 

The sticking points are arbitration and that revenue sharing. 

The revenue sharing is the new version of an old argument. For the players having all the teams be able to spend as much money as possible is good for them. Rich teams and teams going for it spend more, which not only give those players they sign more money directly but raise the market for everyone else. So the more money those team have to spend the better. For the owners... well reverse it. It's not like the owners WANT to have their money shared but it keeps the overall market down, it helps curb their spending influences, and it keeps those one or two rogue teams that will spend anyway under some sort of control. 

That's it in a nutshell - it's a money fight. But both will frame it as competitive balance. The owners will say the teams that receive revenue sharing will have more to spend and will be better - even though that has never actually happened. They just use the money to cover their other costs (and pocket some). The players will make a twisty argument that teams spending more force other teams to spend more because they'd be too bad or something. If anyone really cared there would be a salary floor or a demand all shared revenue go to player salaries, but there isn't. Because like I said it's a money fight - not a competitive balance thing. 

The arbitration is a newer one. For a long time young players got to arbitration in three years. The MLBPA was fine with this because (1) good players could make it up in FA and (2) older players were the ones negotiating. But recently the owners decided that the increase in variance in using younger players was acceptable and so paying market for older (re: like early 30s) FA with similar expectations of production just wasn't necessary. In other words you couldn't make it up in FA anymore. Not as much for as many at least. To counter that - the players are trying to get arbitration started earlier. Arbitration is not market but it's a lot better. Soto is an extreme example but he was getting paid under 600K. Arbitration starting took that to 8.5 million and it'll only go higher. That's a big difference. 

It's such a big difference it could likely be a sticking point for the owners. Their current plan isn't built of paying under market for three years. It's built off paying ridiculously under market to be insulting for three years (and that helping keep the last 3 years of controlled costs down).  This would be a bump in tens of millions in salary that they just pared off. If anything causes us to lose games, it'll be this.  The players need it. The owners really don't want it. There isn't much of a compromise to be had.

*wouldn't matter. A draft pick isn't worth the difference unless it's super high and this won't be super high

**never going to agree on a formula

Counter Intuitive

MLB Players make their first counter today and really negotiations will officially begin again, since the owners opening salvo was really just restating their stance when the lockout was put into place. It'll be interesting to see what the players ask for here, but what they really want is more money spent on players to get back to the usual split- which honestly was in place a couple years ago but has moved away in the past couple of years and it's fair for the players to be worried that it wouldn't shift back without negotiations. 

What would shift it back? And what do I think will happen?

• Raising the cap is an obvious ones. Expect that to be in there and some compromise to be reached.
  
• Shifting free agency earlier would help, since teams are purposely going younger. There are two ways to attack this: earlier FA in general and stopping the "guy called up in early May" service time manipulation. The first one is straightforward but is such a shift that it will be a huge fight to change that if the players really want to make a stand. The latter is more promising, especially if teams bother to look and see it's not sure to matter down the road. Plus the limit it crazy, its being active for 90%+ of the season.  I'd expect some tweak to it adjusting that percentage down to like 75%.  That won't stop service time manipulation. It won't even make a big dent in it, but it'll help a handful of players on contenders get called up.  I Not much but even if you got down to the logical number - 50% that still won't make a huge dent. This is more about fixing an specific obvious unfair situation that 
  
•  Getting more teams to want to compete is another goal but this is a vague goal. It mainly boils down to revenue sharing where the players want teams to spend money on players and a lot of cheap teams are pocketing that revenue sharing money. But REALLY the players want good teams to have money to spend on players so they want less revenue sharing in general rather than stricter guidelines to spend this money on players.  The owners as a group don't like that because there will always be a rogue owner or two when given free reign to spend will do so and drive up costs for everyone.  They could probably agree on some sort of forced spending (bc the very rich teams don't like the normal rich teams not spending either), but it'll take a perspective change on this by the players
• Another way to get teams to compete is to somehow make tanking less appealing but it's pretty much a very minor benefit now once you look at things and that hasn't stopped anyone. The public (media + fans) buy into rebuild narratives for at least a few cycles.
  

Ultimately I think the deal will raise the cap and will do SOMETHING else but not much.  If you think that is too little I agree, but anything that keeps the lights on.

Still nothing

 Might get a counter proposal soon.  

At least the too early "They are going to miss games! Baseball is doomed!" talk will get more lively. That's good if you like to be annoyed.

Kevin Frandsen is replacing FP in the booth.  We never got a full accounting of what FP did.  It seems like nothing criminal actually took place and rather it was a bunch of questionable carousing and general skeeviness. If you are popular enough you could probably apologize, straighten up a little and survive, but FP was a guy in a booth. He had some fans but for most he was easily replaceable. It's easier just to move on from that guy at your first opportunity, and so MASN did.

Frandsen is an uninspired choice. Former scrappy but not good ballplayers abound in this business* But from all we hear he was pretty good with Philly, so it could be worse. Morse nor Maxwell were ready to step in.

*So you can't be ALL bad and usually get these jobs. You usually have to have a decent season or two and otherwise not be terrible so you hang around for a long enough time to make a name and some friends. Obvious reason it skews toward these types is they need the job more than a great player who are more likely just to pop in a few games a year along with other guys who need work and/or want to stay in the game. I guess also there are a lot more middling players than good ones, but really I'd imagine a network would want a good player for the name recognition so they definitely are enjoying retirement.

Now why these are completely white non-Hispanic guys except for Keith Hernandez... well I'll let you think about that. The pop-in types are a little better representative of the guys who played the game. 

Note :  Mets often go three man enough that both Darling and Hernandez would be primary. Philly splits 50/50 Kruk and Ben Davis, both are here. Pittsburgh rotates 5 guys in and out so none are in here. Matt Capps is one!

Primary TV Color Guys

Not middling pitchers - Jim Palmer, Dennis Eckersley, Mark Gubicza, Orel Hershiser

Middling pitchers - Steve Stone, Dallas Braden (yes yes injury), Brian Anderson, CJ Nitkowski, Jim Deshais, Chris Welsh, Ron Darling**, Mike Krukow, Mike Grant

Not middling players - Kirk Gibson, Justin Morneau, Paul O'Neill, John Kruk, Keith Hernandez, Jim Edmonds

Middling players - Rick Manning, Geoff Blum, Rex Hudler,  Mike Blowers, Pat Tabler, Jeff Franceour, Jeff Huson, Todd Hollandsworth, Bill Schroeder, Ben Davis, Kevin Frandsen

Other - Bob Brenly (middling player - but also a bad but lucky manager)

**In my head he's good but really in my head I stop thinking about him in 1986. He WAS good in 1986 and the couple years before that. He was middling for far longer after that. 

Still nothing nationally, a little internationally

 Last week was the international signing period and the Nats did what you want them to. They IDd a top prospect and they paid money to sign him. In fact they paid the most money they ever spent on an international prospect.  So welcome Cristhian Vaquero.

 What does that mean? Well a ton of players come internationally, more than their share drafted.  Of course part of that is the fact baseball drafts a ton times a ton of players. But international players are very important and signing the best ones is usually the best bet. 

That being said one only needs to look at who held the Nats record previously to see how much of a crapshoot this really is. It was held dually by Armando Cruz, who as a 17 year old put up a "talented 17 year old in the Dominican Summer League" season which is to say - not very good in general, but he's super young (in fact his 18th birthday was just a couple days ago) and by Yasel Antuna, who as a 21 year old MI now OF put up a "averagish for a 21 year old in High A" season - which is to say also not very good, but he's still young for his league. If you want to be positive, they've hung on in levels above their ages. If you want to be negative, they haven't done anything outside of Antuna's 17yo rookie league season. If you want to be fair, Antuna is getting toward a make or break time since it was hoped he'd be knocking on the door by now, and it wasn't a good start for Cruz but it's so far off writing him off that you can ignore it other than to say he's probably not a first ballot HoFer to be. 

 I went over international signings a while ago and I felt they were best described as lottery tickets, even more so than draft picks.  Generally if you have a top half first round draft pick you should end up with a ML player. If you didn't you either got bad injury luck or messed up. But the Top 15 international signings? No guarantee. The variance is wild. But you hope that you got the Juan Soto* of the year and not the Yadier Alvarez. 

 

Juan Soto at 17? Had a fantastic Gulf Coast Rookie season. Juan Soto at 21? That was 2020.

Everything a reboot?

More ramblings as the MLB negotiations opened exactly as I thought they would.  It wasn't a continuation of negotiations, but a restart as the owners basically reiterated their initial demands with a minor tweak or two. We had a 6 week pause where nothing happened and this highlights that. 

We'll continue with the TV theme and as you probably know the Fresh Prince is getting a gritty reboot. Who doesn't love a gritty reboot? ... Huh. Everyone.  I think it isn't a bad idea - they actual set-up of the show isn't necessarily comedic and works well for a drama. But keeping everything the same makes it sillier than it needs to be. He doesn't have to go to Bel-Air, the characters all don't have to have the same names. He probably does have to come from Philly, just because it's Will Smith's show, but other than that play around and change things up so it feels like an inspiration, not a parody. 

Any way everything gets a remake or reunion or restart because it's easy. You have a built-in audience to check it out to start and that's better than most anything new you can put out. The two that seem a bit impervious to this are kid/teen shows and doctor shows. Kid/teen shows generally appeal to kid/teens - so you don't have a built in audience if you simply reboot, you either got to convince adults to watch teen or kids stuff or get new kids. If you want the original audience you have to do like a "20 years later" but then you have to get the original cast to agree, not always easy. Also the "best" ones are generally not well watched and short lived*. Doctor shows are so ubiquitous you can just easily make another and people will watch. 

To prove it I pulled a a random list of the Top 50 TV shows of the 90s (80s might be too old for some of you, we're not quite at the full 00s being able to be rebooted yet - takes about 15/20 years to really cycle through) and we'll see one by one where they went after ending. I'm gonna leave out continuations like the X-Files movies or Saved By the Bell the New Class that happened soon after the originals ended

Friends - all rich now don't have to redo the show but had the reunion

Twin Peaks - limited follow up season in 2014 on Showtime

Seinfeld - also all rich, instead had a fake reunion in a season of Curb Your Enthusiasm

My So-Called Life (ed note- hey I didn't pick the list! I didn't like this show and in fact generally hate "this is real life" dramas but I made my choices apriori here) - Teen show. No real reboot (I don't count a post show novel) Cast got famous.

Fresh Prince - see above

X-Files - Got a revival for a couple new seasons in 2016 and 2018

Freaks and Geeks - Teen show. Cast got famous.

Wonder Years - Reboot is on now and is supposed to be pretty good

Saved by The Bell - Revival is on Peacock

Simpsons - Still on! 

Boy Meets World -  Revival "Girl Meets World" ran from 2014-17 on Disney 

Buffy - several undeveloped spinoffs and a planned revival in 2018 that didn't go anywhere

In Living Color - attempted reboot in 2012 didn't get past pilot episodes

Full House - Revival Fuller House streamed on Netflix for 4 seasons? I don't know and my kid isn't home to ask

Murphy Brown - Forgive yourself if you don't remember the one-season 2018 revival 

Mr. Show - Bob and David got around to putting out 4 new episodes for Netflix in 2015, but it's a two-man show and Odenkirk got pretty busy

Unsolved Mysteries - Revived in 2007 for three years on Spike. Revived again in 2020 on Netflix.  

Kids in the Hall -  the original cast was filming something for Amazon but I don't see if it went anywhere

The Adventures of Pete & Pete - Kids show. Nothing.

Married... With Children - In 2014 the production company asked for pitches for a Bud Bundy show but it didn't go anywhere. 

OK that's 20 - I'll peruse the rest for what I know off the top of my head...  Quantum Leap's reboot was just announced, Daria is having a spin-off, Magic School Bus was redone at least once, Animaniacs came back, Law & Order (original flavor) is coming back I think?, Beavis and Butthead definitely had several revivals, Rugrats came back in new animation, Mad About You did new shows, the was a new Melrose Place at some point I think, 90210 was BH90210's revival, MST3K rebooted, The Nanny is doing a reboot. 

So that's at least 12+15 like 27 out of 50? And I bet it's closer to 40 if I dug down into those other 30.  Maybe later.

Even though it feels like "We have no new ideas" I can't imagine it's all that new.  Pick a classic show. It's gonna have something in the future. There's money on the table and they aren't going to leave it there. The only difference is now there are a bunch of streaming channels along with the usual suspects trying to get programming and that's digging down a little deeper into our memory holes.

*nothing separates a critic from the real world more than their love of a "realistic" teen drama. Real teens want Riverdale.

Thursday Ramblings

Huh - so still no baseball talk. That's odd. Wonder what's going on. 

Look there isn't going to be anything really here baseball wise for a month. And chances are most of what will come about is - "That's a ridiculous offer by the owners" "The players still need to make a couple concessions" "Ok now the owners are serious" type stuff, but that only makes for three posts as you see. If you make me guess I'll say Feb 21st for an agreement date (with ST starting a few days late) so that's still more than a month away.  You guys don't want three posts do you? You need content to fill your lives! 

So what content shall that be. I can definitely ramble. I have the correct thoughts on pretty much everything. You tell me. 

I'm working my way through Posnanski's Baseball 100 - which is sort of his Top 100 players with a few "article in a newspaper" pages on each as opposed to "this is their career" dryness. It's very good.Some thoughts

The first players that make his list started in 1890 which may seem like a long time ago but cuts out probably 20 years of decently viable baseball. The big loser there is Cap Anson who was kind of baseball's first superstar but also a virulent racist so no tears shed - especially considering this is a personal list not trying to be THE objective 100 best players.  Most of the others come from the fact sometimes you threw 500 innings. That's kind of hard to translate to now terms if it was actually any good. If you want to feel bad for someone maybe Roger Connor is the best choice from this group. The guy was the HR king of baseball from the end of his career in 1895 until Ruth took the crown after like his second big season. He was the first one to really HOLD it and was a great hitter. Maybe Dan Brouthers - baseball's first slugger. But still the game was admittedly a bit wonky until you get to the 1890s and the leagues start to gel so I can see denying those 1880s stats.

The guys after 1900 who were kind of snubbed were

Eddie Plank - a rubber armed dead ball pitcher who was good but primarily got his value from never getting hurt and throwing a ton. 

Tom Glavine - you know Glavine. He's sort of the same as Plank but was very good. Honestly the difference between Glavine and a guy like Blyleven (who does make it at #71) is more era than anything. If you are going to adjust for old timers and for now timers you should adjust for the subtle changes in between as well. 

That's probably it honestly.  Once you try to adjust for adding in Negro Leaguers and historically under appreciated catchers you shift everything like 15 spots and a guy in the 70-80 WAR range (which is where we are now) is in 85-95 and if you like someone better at 105 or 115 should we really call that a snub?

He probably overrates the stars of his youth (21 of this list debuted in the 15 years period between 1959 and 1974). Even limiting baseball to 1900-2000 that would be a bit of a stretch. And then again the stars of his early work (another 16 pop up between the decade of 1986-1995).  Did 37% of baseball's greats appear in like 22% of it's years? Maybe I guess. These things aren't going to be exactly distributed.  Most likely though there are one or two here that wouldn't be on others.

Ok so there you go - some baseball talk.

Wednesday ramblings

Talks coming? Well of course they were coming, but the first talks are finally starting up this week. Despite what you might hear the season is not in jeopardy right now, neither is any Spring Training in fact. Pitchers and catchers report around Valentines Day so as long as the deal is struck within a couple days of that date things will be basically normal.  You can probably even go a week+ later and have minimal impact because do pitchers and catchers REALLY need to come early in this day and age where everyone is working out and keeping fit all winter long? No. The answer is no.  The MLBPA still probably strikes a week of ST because they can and the owners don't really care but they don't have to until we actually get TO the ST games. I concede they do need some time to get together and warm up and have eyeballs on players, etc. 

So the timeline as of today is like 5 weeks.  Anything more than that likely causes a disruption. Anything more than like 7 weeks causes major disruption and might cause a delay in the start of the season, mostly because they'll want time to get FA and arbitration sorted out then any actual physical reasons. 

Lester retires. Lester was signed last year with the hopes he could pitch a bit better or get a bit lucky or both and anchor the back of the Nats rotation. That quickly became a moot point as the rest of the rotation fell apart with Stras' injury, Ross and Fedde continuing their "not quite good and healthy enough to stick, not quite bad and old enough to dismiss" dance, and Patrick Corbin suddenly becoming truly terrible. But even though the point was moot we should note he did not pitch better nor did he get lucky.  He was a 5.00+ERA pitcher and basically got those results. That's a passable 5th for most teams but not good enough for a team hoping to compete with other rotation issues 

As it is a passable 5th he might have been able to sneak out another season somewhere, eating up innings, mentoring some young arms and throwing to 5.00 ball but he has succumbed to the late career apathy that takes many stars. Lester has enough money and traveling around the country with a bunch of guys he doesn't know dealing with aches and pains of trying to pitch while aging for no real end goal is not super appealing.

Where does he stand in MLB history? One of the best LHSP of the first post steroid era. Good story recovering from a treatable form of cancer. Not a HoFer.  Somewhere better than a guy like David Price, worse than a guy like Tim Hudson. 

Tuesday Ramblings

Hey there isn't baseball news so I'm going to ramble today

Something you learn growing up watching TV is that all the kids you see on TV are probably older than they are playing. Sometimes a year or two, sometimes several, but it's unlikely that that 13 year old is really 13.  Why? Several reasons. Older kids are usually better actors. Older kids can work longer. Older kids have already gone through puberty so you don't have to worry about awkward transitions (see that youngest kid from Home Improvement) But on the flip side they also cast parents far younger than  they should be. Why? This one is simple. Young people are better looking. Old people look old! Yuck!

Getting to the point - when Bob Saget died it led me to look up exactly how old he was when he started Full House. This is what happens when you get older and people who remember as adults in your youth die - you start wondering about your age in comparison. Turns out he was 31.  Which is weird because in theory he had a 10 year old kid and he married his wife after college but such is the TV parent life. If we take your actual age and put it against the supposed age of the kid you have, it rarely makes sense. 

For a service to you here are some parents' ages when they had their first kid based on the actor's birth year and the supposed age of the kid (I worked backward from HS graduation episodes assuming 17 for that to give the parents the biggest benefit of the doubt I could)

Full House - Danny Tanner 21

Family Ties - Steven and Elyse Keaton 19 (Fun fact - Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter share an exact birthday)

Growing Pains - Jason Seaver 23, Maggie Seaver 17 

Who's the Boss - Tony Micelli 22, Angela Bower 27 (this sort of makes sense for a former baseball player and a woman who at least got something going business wise)

Cosby Show - Cliff Huxtable 27, Clair Huxtable 16 (this got really messed up because after the show started Cosby wanted a child already in college and seemingly successful so they added they several year older than Denise, Sondra. The actress that played her was only 10 years older in real life than Phylicia Rashad. But that was nothing special. The actor that played Cosby's Dad was only 11 years older than him)

Family Matters - Carl Winslow 24, Harriet Winslow 26- This works? I mean certainly in comparison with almost everything else here

My Two Dads - Greg Evigan's Dad 22, Paul Reiser's Dad 19.  Don't ask me why this made my list

Boy Meets World - Alan Matthews 32/30,  Amy Matthews 27/25.  This also works but you are probably wondering why the slash. Well the first season they are clearly 11 year olds in sixth grade.  In the second season they are in high school and spend four years there.  It isn't a time jump. It isn't explained. They just age them up 2 years. 

Fresh Prince - Uncle Phil 27, Aunt Viv 1 - 16, Aunt Viv 2 - 24.  Gotta guess here on Hilary because she's already in college and doesn't graduate. I went ahead and did 18 but she could be older and the parents younger. But let's at least keep Uncle Phil in the legal in some states territory.

Home Improvement - Tim Taylor 28, Jill Taylor 30. Times change. I guess. We're no longer in the time where parents had to get married out of HS and pop out a lot of kids because half would die like... the mid 1970s.

 Maybe there will be baseball news tomorrow. 

Happy January 5th

Yeah look nothing is going on. 

Worse than that - since MLB is probing its deep library for content in the meantime, that means the Nats website is back to showing Expos stuff. 

There's a bit on minor leaguers (they aren't locked out as they aren't part of the MLBPA).  They talk about who they thought might be the breakout prospect and who was.  They thought Yasel Antuna might be. The 21 year old was bumped up again and responded with the same kind of bad average / bad patience year he had in his last full season (2018), but with some increased power. .227 / .307 / .385. Not a breakout, not a disappointment. If he goes to AA next year, likely the case, and does something similar that's fine. If he stays in High A he'll need to do better.  They admit the real breakout was Cade Cavalli, and yep he was. Obvious choice. Probably will see him at the end of next year. 

The fun thing is out of 30 teams they only correctly picked 4 breakout prospects. That's not to say their picks all were terrible - but still. Prospect evaluation is hard! Everyone has a limit and you don't know what that really is until they get to it. 

They also put out a guess on the prospect most likely to bounce back. For the Nats it was Jackson Rutledge - a good pick too because he was bad! His ERA was a little unfair but he did pitch pretty poorly overall while fighting injuries.  Healthy it's a pretty good bet he'll do better. Will he pitch well? I don't know about that. But better? Sure.

Merry Christmas!

It was just over a decade ago when the Nats made the move that I think really set in motion the next 8 years of constant contention. A decade ago the Nats send AJ Cole, Derek Norris, Tommy Milone, and Brad Peacock to the Athletics for Gio Gonzalez. 

We've gone over what the Nats needed to happen to actually make the window open. A stroke of timing and luck that had prospects develop, signings work out, and trades happen all coalescing on a brief 1-2 year period. But to me the Gio deal was the biggest. It was the one that signaled the team wasn't in it for tomorrow anymore but today.  All four of the guys they dealt were good enough to be major leaguers and all eventually made it. In fact all three pitchers were in the majors last year. But they were willing to give that up for the security of a guy who looked to give you 200 IP of 2-3 type pitching for the next few years. The Nats were going for it. 

Gio would work out really well for three seasons then follow that with three very useful, if in an infuriatingly 100 pitch for 5 inning fashion, seasons before being sent out for next to nothing in 2018. That covered nearly all of the Nats window giving the Nats something every year. 

Anyway, just thinking that a decade ago the Nats made it clear they were going for it NOW and gave the fans quite a ride that luckily ended up with the ultimate prize. Regardless of what happens now you still have that to look back on. 

Monday Quickie - Last minute roster stuffers

You got any last minute gifts you need to buy? The Nats do. It's been a lean year so they aren't looking at putting any big gifts under the Christmas tree. Instead they are stuffing that stocking (Stirrup? No it would fall out of that) with a bunch of cheap stuff that you might have heard of and get a couple days of play out of but really are there to make you feel like you are getting a lot. Silly Putty. A mini plastic slinky. A $5 gift card to Starbucks. Dee Strange-Gordon. A couple candy bars. An orange. Maikel Franco. Socks.

Dee Strange-Gordon 

Last Good - In 2017 at age 29 DSG hit about league average and played above average defense at 2B making him a minor plus for the Marlins

Last Year - In 2022 at age 33 DSG hit .248 / .288 / .370 across three different AAA teams splitting time between SS and 2B. 

Strange-Gordon probably isn't as bad as his last partial season in the majors showed, hitting to an embarrassing .213 SLG, if you can call that slugging. But even still he hit to 79 and 80 OPS the previous two years. The Mariners tried him in CF as that's what they needed which proved to be a mistake and since returning to the MI he hasn't been the plus fielder he was.

Maikel Franco

Last Good - Maikel's 27 year old 2020 audition with the Royals was ok, producing a line of .278 / . 321 / .457 over 60 games. His defense was ok as well. Together they put him in the mix of a bunch of decent third basemen.

Last Year - Maikel's 28 year old 2021 was an abysmal failure at the plate producing the worst season of his career by far and a .210 / .253 / .355 line. Defense was still solid though.

There's kind of a knock on Franco that he can't keep his attention or interest up leading to wildly varying production. His OPS+ the past 5 seasons are 79 - 106 - 81 - 102 - 63.  If he hits with his defense you have a useful player. If he doesn't hit he DOESN'T HIT and you don't.  There's talk the Nats could use him as a DH which is silly considering his decent defense is probably why you signed him as his offense doesn't fluctuate far enough into positive to be worthwhile.

Cesar Hernandez

I like this format so I'll put Cesar into it 

Last Good - At 30 in 2020 Cesar put up solid numbers at the plate, not trying too much for the homers and some strong defense at 2B which he is capable of doing.

Last Year - At 31 in 2021 Cesar once again swung for the fences and got his highest HR total yet (21) at the expense of everything else. His defense was solid but not exceptional

Said this a week ago but Cesar is swinging and missing a tick more in the past few years and walking a bit less and he doesn't have the overall skills to keep that from dipping him into a below average bat. It's just a tick below average though and his defense is still solid making him a kind of borderline starter / back-up in the league depending on the team. 

Cesar is the best bet to be usable. He'd be a great back-up for some team, a decent "worst bat" starter at a tough position to fill, and questionable as anything more important. Franco is a gamble. He seems to oscillate between bad and good at the plate so this year he could be good again. That's more average actually but with his decent glove that's a starter. But he tends to be very bad when he doesn't hit.  Gordon is probably still a good fielder but his bat is likely not good enough to keep him on a team in any form but PR / late inning defense.  I'm not sure why the Nats would grab him. 

There you go! Baseball news.  And if you do need a last minute gift let us know in the comments and maybe the collective audience can help you out.

The fifth rule of no-fight club

Is you don't talk about the Rule V draft. But no baseball can go on, not even FA talks so here we are.  The Nats selected 4 guys in the minor league section of the Rule V draft (which means they don't have to stay on the 25 man roster)

Andrew Young

Young is ironically the oldest player the Nats picked up as he'll be 28 early in 2021. He has one big skill - power and that's only grown as he's matured. The problem is that he strikes out a lot and the last two times up he's only managed to be above average at the plate by maintaining a Top 10 in majors type HR/FB rate. That usually doesn't hold up as major league pitchers have more time to adjust to you AND the fact that he should be starting his decline soon... well its a tough sell.  Made even tougher by the fact he doesn't have a natural position, the kind of guy who plays around the IF because he can and he can't hit enough to play 1B. That's not going to age either. 

But could he play a full season and you get lucky as he turns into something someone else might like? Sure.  Or could he cut down on those Ks and be a decent back up IF who can hit a homer, a C-Fielding Danny Espinosa? Maybe. Of course you don't grab him for that, you grab him for the 1 in 1000 chance he clicks and is a power hitting MI. 

The rest are live arms

Curtis Taylor  Impressive K numbers in some minor league outings. Generally had been hard to hit and hard to homer too.  Why was he available? He's 27 next July, he walks a ton, and the Blue Jays had a bunch of guys they liked more. Also all the trends have been bad as he's moved up. Guys with better patience and hitting seem to catch his mistakes and hold off the rest.

Matt Brill Repeat above. More unhittable and unhomerable but also wilder and has seem to hit a wall in AA where his combined numbers over 2 years and 60 IP is an ERA of 6.34 and a BB/9 of 6.  I don't care how many guys you K that's too many.  He was a converted offensive player but he converted in college because he couldn't hit enough there so it's not like he's going to switch back in AA. 27 next year

Dakody Clemmer 26 next year, the Indians have a very deep system. He's had decent results in the minors but in different ways.  Early on he was an ok control, meh K, fantastic homer control guy ( 7 homers in nearly 200 IP). Coming out of the missed 2020 he went big into Ks and they went way up... but so did the walks. Homer control was still there.  I find him more interesting than Taylor or Brill but the truth is if 2 months into this season the K jump shows itself to be a fluke there's nothing here with the guy unlike the others who truly have those live arms. That's why he's draft in the last round 

Nats have plenty of holes, so certainly fine grabbing these guys. The age says these aren't long term fixes (such is the way for most of Rule V) but if the Nats are looking at 2022 with an eye toward 2023 these are the types you want.

What's going on? HoFers

 Nothing nothing is going on. 

A few guys got elected to the Hall by the veteran's committe or whatever it is called now.  Two guys, Bud Fowler and Buck O'Neil are special cases. Fowler is often noted as the first Black professional baseball player, Buck a tireless advocate for Negro League recognition and a great ambassador for the game itself.  Neither are good enough players to make it but there are these types in the Hall. 

The rest are the usual veteran's committee guys who were good enough to get writer votes but not good enough to get enough writer votes. Kaat and Minoso are in the gray area of career stats where sometimes other things can get you in. Hodges and Oliva aren't there but have their own circumstances.

Minoso was another compiler to the point of sort of being a joke at the end, a fun one though.  During the normal part of his career the guy could hit and run (95 career triples, leading the league 3 times) but wasn't necessarily an intuitive base stealer (career 216 SB to 130 CS - with things getting really dicey after hitting 30). He was seen as a good fielder, wasn't afraid of taking a walk, and was also healthy for a long while basically not missing more than a week in every season but one from 25-35. A lot of games and a lot of hits and walks and good fielding means racking up a lot of value. Being available may not be a skill (injury luck is what it is) but it's important and can't be dismissed. He'd finish his ML career with a .299 BA and nearly 2000 hits. At this point we have to mention his first few years were in the Negro Leagues and he played a year in the competitive PCL bc loaded Cleveland didn't need him. You can imagine a scenario where if baseball wasn't racist he plays around 4ish more full years. That's another 700 hits for a guy like Minnie and at 2600 hits and more major league time he moves up not quite to automatic HoF level but in with the guys where it's more a coin flip. To the point of my first sentence, he'd go on to make appearances at 50 in 76, and 54 in 80 (thanks Veeck!) which was silly but you know what, that's ok.    

Kaat was a good pitch to contact control starter. Just good. But he was good for a very long time and remember that's a skill in my book. He started at least 24 games from the age of 22 through 39 with the exception of one year and started over 40 twice. He was better than league average 14 of 16 years from 22 through 37. He was a slick fielder (though not 16 gold gloves good - that's just inertia) and add that up and... well it's not quite a Hall of Famer.  The 283 wins sort of is right in that sense. If 300 is automatic then Kaat is missing something. Granted if there was no strike in '81 though maybe he powers through to try for 300 as he probably would be sitting around 290. So kind of like Minnie you can imagine a scenario where Kaat gets in. Instead he stuck around long enough to finally win a series at 42 with the Cardinals but with minimal impact.* He's been an ever present broadcast presence since.

Hodges was a premier power hitter of the early 50s with the Brooklyn Dodgers. He struck out a TON for the time but made up for hit by hitting a lot of homers. Never did lead the league but was Top 5 ish each year before losing a step for the second half of the decade. Still when he retired his 370 homers were third most for a RHB.  Seen as a great first baseman he was a very important part of the 50s Dodgers who won pretty constantly. Then he went on to manage, did ok with a middling Washington team before going over to the Mets and being in the dugout for the Miracle '69 title. At 47 with a decent track record you could see him managing another 10+ seasons in various places and another title would be a pretty sure in to the Hall as a manager, especially given his good enough to be reviewed player case. Hodges though would die of his 2nd heart attack just a couple days short of turning 48. This young death has always been one of the things pushing his case forward, sympathy and what ifs matter to voters. 

For an 8 year span Tony Oliva was nearly as good as anyone. He lacked a truly special season but he put out very good to great ones every year and really the only thing holding him back was his free swinging ways (he'd only walk 448 times in his career). He hit for average, he hit for very good power, and he was a solid fielder and baserunner. At 32 he had the best average of his career... and then seriously hurt his knee trying to catch a fly ball. That knee would cost him the rest of 71 and pretty much all of 72. It would take his power as well, turning a 20-25 HR guy into a 15 homer one. Injury stuff is pretty hard to figure out but a normal career trajectory given his averages he probably ends up over 2500 hits and near 300 homers. Again not quite HoF level even then which is probably why he was out but that had less to do with what he did in the majors then his late start. He didn't get here from Cuba until 22/23 and didn't debut until his 25/26 season. It's just hard to hit some numbers given that and his stats from 25-retire would have ended up similar to many HoFers... but he did get injured. Usually that keeps you out, but Tony did enough that his peers wanted him in.

*Fun fact the Cardinals would use 4 pitchers total in the last three games. The three starters and Bruce Sutter would pitch every inning.

Locking the Doors when the store is closed

 MLB is now locked out and I forgive you if you don't care because it doesn't mean all that much.  

Especially as we head toward the holidays, which are typically quiet, and have come off of a especially active period of FA signings, this won't really effect anything for a while. Some Winterfests, some access to off-season facilities for a couple guys, some derailing of what would be occasional GM or manager quotes about the upcoming year to fill time, some weird website changes. You may not notice it at all. 

And because of that there isn't really impetus to get anything done for... like 2 months or so. Not until arrangements start to have to be made for pitchers and catchers in mid February.  So don't expect any movement for a good 6 weeks, because there doesn't have to be movement. 

This has been spurred on by the recent spate (last few years but not this one) of cool FA periods as teams realize the vast middle that they've been paying for of sort of expensive veteran players 30+ can be replaced pretty effectively by guys 22+ under their control. There's a bit more variability there but it's a TON cheaper. If the rest of your team is pretty solidly built or if you don't care if you crash to 70 wins instead of 80 because you aren't trying it's a way to save millions.

What are they actually arguing about to address this shift? Not much.

In brief, the players want more money and want it faster - so an increase in the luxury tax cap and a quicker start on FA for younger players. 

The owners want to reign in giving the players more money as much as possible, more playoffs and ads as additional revenue sources, and some rules changes that may not work but might make the game move faster. 

Both seemingly want the DH, but the players want it more so the owners can negotiate a little off it.

 Here's a good run down of everything 

A couple owners of course have a more hardline stance, which is why you may have seen  earlier proposals that were bad for players once you put them under any scrutiny.  The owners offered up a salary floor - which would raise the payroll of a bunch of teams and the money currently in the system - but with a lower and harder cap, which very quickly (a year? two?) would hurt the players as MLB revenues are still going up.  The owners also offered up no arbitration at all, which sounds good, but ties it to a weird fixed budget for players under control and stretches control through an age (29.5 yrs) rather than a number of years. The likely effect would be an team having a bunch of very young players, as that's the most efficient way of splitting that money and having a player give the team the most for the least for the longest time. A lot of mediocre 24yo costing something tossed to the curb for complete question mark 19yos costing nothing.

These aren't serious discussions.

If you want to break it down to one thing - they are arguing about the increase in the luxury tax and everything else is just negotiations based on that. 

Expect an increase in luxury tax (no floor or some very nominal number set only because some owners don't like others not spending), a very slight change in how fast players get to FA, a bump on minumum salaries, DH, expanded playoffs, ads on jerseys

New Nats

 Lest you thought it was going to be a quiet off-season the Nats have brought in two players! 

Lucius Fox was a very highly touted international free agent (Bahamas( signed by the Giants for a ton of money... then dealt after a single season to Tampa. He hit well in A-ball at 18 and 19 and in High A at 20 showing good average and patience and made a Top 100 prospect list and the Futures game after that. But Lucius also had a decent amount of Ks and not the corresponding power to go with it, and 2019 he couldn't get it going in AA. He was traded to KC and after the 2020 break last year showed a lot of the same stats.  More interested in protecting other guys from the Rule V draft the Royals dropped him from the roster. The O's picked him up, tried to sneak him off the roster into the minors, but the Nats grabbed him. 

He's interesting. From all I read he's got a decent bat, good eye, and good speed, but he's not a particularly good fielder and like said above has no power.  At 24 he's not too old to turn it around but this would presumably be his last shot. 

Cesar Hernandez, the long time former Phillie middle IF has bounced around a couple of teams the past couple of years maintaining his decent fielding, and average-minus bat. It's not a terrible gamble that he keeps that up another year.  He's no longer young (he'll be 32 most of next season) his swinging and missing is trending in the wrong direction. But he's also fast and had some bad luck with balls in play last year and has shown an uptick in power over time.  You can see him hitting .270 with 15 homers by the trade deadline and be a piece that gets you something back, or you can see him hitting and empty .240 and getting you nothing. Similar to Alcides he fills a role.

Mets to the Max? Maximum Mets?

In the past few days the ground shifted in baseball in a way that happens in very few short FA periods.  Seager joined Gray and Semien in Texas. Ray landed in Seattle. Gausman was grabbed by the Blue Jays. The Marlins signed Asavail Garcia. Starling Marte signed with the Mets. Kirby Yates, Daniel Hudson, Hector Neris found new bullpens. Corey Kluber, Michael Wacha, Yimi Garcia, Adam Frazier, Mark Cahna, Eduardo Escobar, and Jacob Stallings all moved teams. And that's not including the half-dozen more were settled before that.

Still for Nats fans nothing was as monumental as Max Scherzer signing with the Mets. 3 years, 130 million. The largest ever annual value for a player. It's hard to top that. 

Fans can certainly be disappointed but we are decades away from the time players developed enough hatred for rivals to regularly avoid signing with them. The Mets offered the most money and maybe the longest contract* and a player took it. There's nothing "mercenary" about that despite what Barry might say, or at least no more mercenary than nearly every other player decision ever.

But that feeling speaks to the feeling Nats fans have for Scherzer. Anecdotally to this soulless automaton on the outside looking in while the rain rusts his joints, it felt to me that Max was the most beloved National. More beloved than flashy Bryce Harper, of course, who never quite gave the fans something to hold onto until that last HR Derby, then went out the door. More beloved than exuberant Juan Soto, who just hasn't been here long enough and now has the question of 'how long' hanging over him. More beloved than enigmatic Stephen Strasburg, who couldn't please most fans for years and is currently hurt. More beloved than milquetoast Ryan Zimmerman, who's always just been but was too far gone to be more than a piece during the window. Max's combination of big emotion and big moments and seemingly love of playing is catnip to fans. Pitching with a black eye? Screaming at the manager to let him keep pitching? Fans eat that up and Max gave them seven full years of servings.

So to see that Max, "our Max", go to a direct rival... that's a bit much. 

But you forget Max was just as much a mercenary coming to the Nats. The Tigers nutured him from a good pitcher into a Cy Young one then offerend him lifetime security with a long wealthy deal.  Max thought he could do better. He refused the deal and he bet on himself. Turned out to be a smart move as the following year he left for a bigger and longer deal, the biggest and longest deal he could get (sound familiar?). It was with the Nats. 

What will Max do for the Mets? Well he's getting older and while Zimm might think he's the "Tom Brady of baseball", Tom Brady can last forever primarily by avoiding hits and baseball and its everyday grind isn't like that.** That's especially true for a pitcher who is attached to a ticking time bomb called a pitching arm. After throwing for over 187+ innings and 32+ starts for 8 consecutive years 2019 and 2021 brought fewer starts and innings. Not a lot fewer but enough that you can see the end from here. We should assume in 2022 something similar, 27-30 starts, an ERA no higher than 3.00. Something to give the Mets the best 1-2 in baseball if deGrom is right. You base 2023 on 2022 and 2024 on 2023. That's what you do at his age.  If you make me guess I'm saying 80 starts in 3 years with an ERA under 3.50 and value for the deal if not exactly living up to it. I don't bet against Max.

The Mets signings as a whole are pretty good in the short term. Which is how they should be thinking because they are trying to get as far as possible while having possibly the best pitcher of our time (yes, deGrom is that good - look at his stupid 2021) and a couple of recent long term deals for guys like Lindor and McCann who should be good now but no guarantee of that down the line. Their time if ever is now. Marte fills the CF hole with someone who can hit AND play the position, and allows Nimmo to play corner OF which he's pretty good at. Eduardo Escobar will cover multiple positions with a pretty good switching hitting bat. Cahna give the Mets the patient bat they sorely lacked.  It'll be interesting to see what they do with the pretty decent parts they may have pushed out.  Dom Smith, 4th OF? Either the off-year McNeil or the cement hands JD Davis have to sit. They still need to deal with the pen but right now you put them as the top team in the East, at the very least until you see what the Braves do. Freeman is still suspiciously unsigned.

Tough day for Nats fans but get used to it. It'll be a tough year. Yesterday was emblematic of the Nats offseason - quiet. And not sneaky quiet. Uninterested. Nothing from the beats, or the usual insiders. If anything what they said made you think THEY think the Nats are doing nothing. They'll wait. Pick up a few 1-2 year contracts on the cheap to roll for prospects at the deadline. What matters in 2022 for the Nats is not wins, but development. Cheer on every K by Cavalli, every homer by House. Because that's what's going to determine if next offseason is filled with talk about signing Soto or trading him.

*which is crazy - I know Max is 37/38 next year but if you want to win NOW he's as good a bet as any pitcher to be good in 2022 so why not give him an extra year, or two, or three even.  I can see not matching the money but the years thing is crazy to me. 

** not saying baseball isn't tougher than football. I am saying if you can somehow mostly avoid hits in football there is little action and only 16 games so you could last a very long time. Of course the point of most of football is taking or giving hits so avoiding hits is pretty much impossible. 

All quiet's on the Nats front

 Beacuse of the impending "lockout"* free agency is in a weird spot.  There were some early signings to get ahead of what most assume will be a delay into a new CBA with little practical impact, but others are waiting just in case there's something in the new CBA that might change their approach.  With the lock out date (December 2nd) coming close the question is whether we see a bunch of signings or a stall

 But one thing won't change - the basic disinterest it seems the Nats have in any moves.  Again if you are looking at the chicken bones you threw on the ground (pick those up! Dogs can choke on those!) it seems the Nats are more "can we be good in 2023?" than "we are going to try to be good in 2023" mode

 In other news - some Nats were in the AFL. While you shouldn't pay attention to AFL stats other than if you have a strong feeling going in and want to see some confirmation here's a quick rundown. 

Cole Henry struck a bunch of guys out but is wild. Todd Peterson you never heard of, he was ok. Jackson Rutledge looked bad. Not Brady House Jackson Cluff walked a bunch and got a bunch of singles. C Drew Millas they got in trade was bad. Israel Pineda was a no patience no power DH in limited ABs. Donovan Casey hit for some pop in limited ABs. 

Rule 5 guys were announced and no big surprises. Out of the guys they list that are internal prospects that might get taken it's hard to see Cate, a starter who was bad last year with no eye popping skill, or Pineda a catcher who was bad last year with no eye popping skill, being selecting.  Richard Guasch, a reliever, might draw some interest because he's got a live arm and sometimes these guys just "get it" and you can hide him as the last man in the pen. Jordy Barley also might get selected but that's a long play as he's almost certainly not ready for the majors and won't be anytime soon. You'd grab him, stash him, and then have him in your minors at 22 in 2023.  If you like him it's not a bad play... if you are going nowhere. But there are other guys available from other teams who fit both these profiles so we'll see. 

 

*technically true but who cares about a lockout or strike when no one is actually supposed to be doing anything? 

For the optimists out there

 I painted a pretty bleak picture Monday and nothing has changed but, BUT I'm hear to tell you if I'm wrong why things could be better just next year. 

First off is the obvious - if the Nats choose rebuilding for 2023 rather than figuring out if they will rebuild for 2023 then they'll be better. Maybe not playoff better but probably around .500 and the idea would be they'd be looking to be playoff ready in 2023. A SS and a few RP? Maybe Robbie Ray instead? Or a low-end SP and a solid OF? The Nats payroll would be around $140 million in my scenario, with around $155 million toward the cap of around $210. There is money available for them to do this. 

Second is - there is so much money available that they can probably spend their way to success without going over the luxury tax... if Strasburg is healthy and good.  If that's the case a big time SP, a decent rotation filler, a big time SS, and a decent OF gets you right around the luxury tax area and also around 90 wins. Is that enough? The Braves were legit good and will get back Acuna, but aren't going to keep everyone that was big toward their late season and playoff runs and will spend most of their money presumably on just keeping Freddie and seeing what happens. The Phillies remain a bat and an arm away.  They seemed primed to bring in a bat at SS but Phillies being Phillies I imagine they let the arm slide and continue to be not good enough.  Who knows with the Mets and the Marlins could be players but probably not next year - I haven't heard any rumblings (I also think they might be eyeing Trea next year). So yeah - it's likely enough or very close. 

Third - if Strasburg isn't healthy and good (honestly the most likely scenario) they could just go over the cap. They won't but they could. That's the beauty of baseball - if you want to win games and you aren't currently terrible, you can spend the money and make it happen.  You can't guarantee a title but you can pretty much guarantee a playoff spot if you are willing to go all in. 

As long as the off-season isn't over (and it's barely begun) there's still hope for those looking for more. And hell... 

Fourth... well I suppose they could not try and get incredibly lucky. Soto has a SOTO year and Bell hits like he has. Ruiz is a ROY winner type season, while Garcia looks like a good bat and Kieboom finally blossoms, at least to average.  Thomas is a steal and Robles finds his way back to average too.  Escobar will likely still be a hole but with a solid OF pick-up you have a 7 deep line-up.  Strasburg is an ace again. Corbin is average for him which is good enough. Gray shows as a real 3/4. Ross is a real 3/4 and finally stays healthy.  Rogers, Fedde, et al bounce around for a little bit until Cavalli burns up AAA and comes up and is good. The bullpen FA signings work out and they get those random good years that other teams pens seem to have. You get all that - that's a playoff team too. 

So like any good fan you can probably live out some fantasy of competitiveness even if your team shouldn't be good through Memorial Day.  That's the beauty of fandom in a sport where the best team wins 60% of their games and the worst team wins 40%.  Seasons are rarely over that quickly and you can enjoy a couple months every year. 

Oh I'll add if you want to play around with a potential Nats roster, James O'Hara set out his at this point annual web page to do that over here : https://jamesohara08.github.io/NatsGMProject/

Obviously imperfect and guessing at some costs but gives you a general idea of the flexibility the Nats have (more than you might think) and the talent available (pretty sparse beyond those SSs) 

Monday Quickie - Bringing it all together

 If you take all my position posts together you get a team that looks like this 

• 1B - Bell
• 2B - Garcia
• SS - Escobar
• 3B - Kieboom
• RF  - Soto 
• CF - Thomas 
• LF - FA
• C - Ruiz
• SP - Corbin
• SP - FA
• SP - Gray 
• SP - Fedde/Ross/Rogers/Adon
• SP - Strasburg/FA
• Closer - FA
• Set-up - FA

The rest of the roster includes Yadi Hernandez, Andrew Stevenson/Victor Robles as 4th and 5th OFs, a veteran to back-up/spot start 2B/3B, Riley Adams/FA as back-up C and 1B. Espino and Finnegan fit into relief spots with probably one or two more arms currently here and a third FA. 

Filling in spots lets say Corey Dickerson in the OF, DeSclafani as the SP1, Jordan Lyles as the SP2, Donovan Solano as the 2B, 3B guy and Ryan Tepara and Hector Neris and I don't know Corey Oswalt as the Closer, Set-Up, and other arm respectively. Suero and Thompson fill out the pen. 

That's clearly not a winning team  

The other day I said 2022 is a rebuilding year but it can go one of two ways

(1) It's a set-up year to possibly compete in 2023. The Nats buy in to a SS and a few SP/RP that will be her for the next 2-3-4 years while letting guys like Ruiz, Gray, Garcia, Thomas, and yes Kieboom have their 2 month, half-year, full-year goes at it. Based on how they do, you trade or sign the one or two guys necessary next off-season to compete, or 

(2) It's a complete organizational review year. You get a few guys because you aren't deep enough to just play young guys and not be embarrassing (see the end of last year) but they are grabbed with the thought of trading them if they are any good for more young players. You are here to evaluate anyone you can. Along with the guys noted above you want time for more questionable guys like Adams, Casey, Thompson, Adon, Rogers, McGowin, Klobosits, Clay, and guys past them.  Based on how everyone does you decide if you can compete in 2023 and beyond and respond accordingly in the next off-season. 

It wasn't supposed to be a choice here. It was always supposed to be (1). They'd reload with Strasburg, Corbin, Soto, Turner*, and Robles holding down the fort. Probably a usable Kieboom a decent 5th in Ross or Fedde and a couple relief arms like Harris and Rainey, set. But out of all that they only have Soto left that you can feel confidence in.  They managed to pull in a decent C prospect and some other things of interest but the truth is they have too many holes now. And a lot of how they move forward depends on how strongly they believe that what they have on hand will work out.  (1) can still work, if you think Strasburg will be ok by 2023, if you think Corbin is usable, if an OF and Garcia look decent. But if you aren't sure about that it's hard to move forward with (1).  You are very likely to build a team good enough to miss the playoffs by a few games. 

But as Nats fans (2) is scary because if you come away with the idea that you don't have enough on hand, then it becomes difficult to keep Soto around. You can't be sure that you will have enough in 2 years to convince him to stay and every year that passes the haul you can get for him drops. There probably isn't a haul worth dealing him anytime in 2022 but if you don't look competitive in 2023 there will be teams coming at the Nats with multiple Top 100 guys and how do the Nats resist? 

I'll be watching the signings and rumors. The Nats should be in the OF and SP talk - there isn't a lot there. They should be in the relief talk - that's the guys you bring in to deal later. But if the Nats are also seriously into the SS market that bodes well. If not, I get worried, unless all the deal the Nats do make look to go into that 3rd year or beyond. 

 

*In this scenario they still might have dealt Turner but only to grab a SS this offseason. Turning a potential issue (Turner's upcoming FA) into getting some talent while not having a hole.